Devonne Brown

Famous Diner

I didn’t think Shakespeare would show up for dinner, not the real one anyway. He’d been dead for four hundred and six years. My research for a novel featuring the bard had me making a basic English roast dinner, including a bad Yorkshire pudding. Those things are tricky. When I make them, they turn out like crusty, greasy lids for plastic containers, if I don’t burn them. I had a question or two about some of the background of one of his plays. Primary sources, even from a dead bard, are better than nothing.

He appeared as I took the first sip of sherry. I’m glad I had poured it into the good crystal for the occasion. I had read somewhere that sherry was a weakness of his. I poured him a dram in an unchipped glass reserved for company.

Shakespeare was better looking than those portraits in the big galleries. His eyes were bigger and his hairline wasn’t as far back. I couldn’t get a decent selfie with him. I tried, but he wouldn’t stand still. He was all over the place looking at stuff in the house. He loved the recliner. Thank God it wasn’t an electric one, he’d still be in it.

I felt like it was bad manners to take a picture at dinner. Besides, his table manners were atrocious. He probably would have grinned with a mouthful of meat hanging through his teeth, then thought I’d stolen his soul and trapped it in the phone, or some weird name he’d invent for it. It was better to leave the whole concept alone.

Shakespeare needed a  course in modern etiquette. And, because I was taught that good table manners means never mentioning the fact that your dining partner has no manners, or is dead, or a ghost, I kept my mouth shut. I have excellent table manners. I said absolutely nothing when he tore the roast apart and ate everything with his hands, everything, even the cherry pie and ice cream. Silverware be damned. Thank God I had a bunch of damask napkins from a yard sale. He needed all twenty-four of them. He ate with his mouth open, sucked his teeth and his fingers, gulped, burped, and farted, in unison, several times. I guess it was the custom in the 1600’s. He wasn’t the the debonair superstar I had envisioned.

I wanted to know everything in the great William Shakespeare’s mind, and since he hadn’t spoken to anybody in ages, he was ready to talk. Perfect British English is fairly easy on the ear, but Shakespearean English takes an adjustment period. I might have been able to understand him if he hadn’t tried to talk, chew, and drink sherry at the same time. A man who’s been dead four hundred and six years gets drunk on sherry with less than two tiny glasses. 

He had a lot to say, but I have no idea what was on his mind. I was too fascinated by his masticating presence. Food flew everywhere. I had no idea the ghost of William Shakespeare enjoyed food so much. 

I couldn’t stand his mess any longer and gave him a hot washcloth to clean the leftovers out of his beard and offered him coffee to mark the conclusion of dinner. He’d never smelled anything like coffee before, sweet and rich, never tasted it either. I poured him a cup, doctored with half and half and sugar, the kind grandmothers give their grandchildren. If I’d given him black coffee like I drink, he probably would have thrown it against a wall. He drank and his eyes widened. 

“This must be the elixir of youth and life. I want more,” he said.

“It is indeed. People have been known to kill for this drink. Especially in the mornings,” I said. I was very matter of fact. In that moment, my self esteem soared. I knew more about something than Shakespeare. The man who invented worlds, words, and Falstaff became a coffee drinker that night, and it was because of me. I did that.